Follow the money from industry to politics.
wethepeopleforus.com | @WTPForUs | Sponsor
WeThePeople is an open-source civic transparency platform that tracks how corporations lobby Congress, win government contracts, face enforcement actions, trade stocks alongside legislators, and donate to politicians. It pulls from 40+ government APIs and covers 9 sectors: Politics, Finance, Health, Technology, Energy, Transportation, Defense, Chemicals, and Agriculture — plus all 50 states. 537 politicians and 1,000+ companies tracked. Every data point links back to its authoritative public source.
| Platform | Status | Description |
|---|---|---|
| WeThePeople | Live | The core lobbying and influence tracker. Congressional trades, money flows, enforcement actions, lobbying filings, government contracts. 1,000+ tracked entities across 9 sectors. |
| WTP Research | Live | 15 deep-dive research tools: patent explorer, drug lookup, clinical trials, insider trades, FDA recalls, toxic releases, foreign lobbying (FARA), revolving door tracker, campaign finance, government salaries, bill text analysis, market movers, regulatory news, earmarks tracker. |
| The Influence Journal | Live | AI-generated data investigations powered by 20 detection patterns. STOCK Act violations, committee-stock conflicts, enforcement immunity, penalty-to-contract ratios, FARA foreign lobbying, chemical enforcement, agriculture subsidies, cross-sector donors, enforcement decline. 30+ published stories with verification pipeline. |
| Mobile App | In development | iOS and Android via Expo. 40+ screens covering all 9 sectors, congressional trades, ZIP lookup, stories, anomalies, state explorer, influence network, chat agent, and company comparison. Available via Expo Go during preview. |
- 9 Sectors — Politics, Finance, Health, Technology, Energy, Transportation, Defense, Chemicals, and Agriculture — plus State-level data across all 50 states
- 15 Research Tools — Patent Explorer, Drug Lookup, Clinical Trials, Insider Trades, FDA Recall Search (food/drug/device), Toxic Release Inventory, Foreign Lobbying (FARA), Revolving Door Tracker, Campaign Finance, Government Salaries, Bill Text Analysis, Market Movers, Regulatory News, Earmarks Tracker
- Influence Network Graph — Interactive force-directed visualization mapping connections between politicians, companies, donations, lobbying, and legislation
- Congressional Trade Tracker — 4,600+ stock trades parsed from official House financial disclosure PDFs, with filing delay indicators and virtual scrolling
- Spending Choropleth Map — Interactive US map showing lobbying spend, donations, and political activity by state
- Money Flow Sankey Diagrams — Trace how money flows from companies through lobbying and PAC donations to specific politicians
- Claim Verification Pipeline — Submit any political claim; the system extracts assertions and matches them against 9 data sources (votes, trades, lobbying, contracts, enforcement, donations, committees, SEC filings, legislative actions). Enterprise-gated.
- AI Chat Agent — 3-tier resolution: client-side FAQ, response cache, then Claude Haiku for complex questions
- 20 Story Detection Patterns — STOCK Act violations, committee-stock conflicts, lobbying spikes, contract windfalls, enforcement gaps, bipartisan buying, penalty-to-contract ratios, prolific traders, enforcement immunity, revolving door, regulatory arbitrage, trade clusters, trade timing, full influence loops, FARA foreign lobbying spikes, chemical enforcement ratios, agriculture subsidy-to-lobbying, cross-sector donors, enforcement decline, regulatory capture
- Story Verification Pipeline — Auto-verifies AI-generated stories against 9 data sources before publishing. Green/yellow/gray verification badges.
- Anomaly Detection — Flags unusual patterns: trades near committee votes, lobbying spend spikes before contract awards, enforcement timing gaps, donation surges
- Closed-Loop Influence Detection — Identifies complete influence cycles: company lobbies on bill, bill goes to committee, company donates to committee members
- FARA Foreign Lobbying — 7,000+ registrants, 17,000+ foreign principals, 44,000+ agents from DOJ FARA database. Search by country, registrant, or agent.
- Zip Code Lookup — Enter your ZIP, see your district-specific representative (not all state reps): trades, donors, committee conflicts. Uses house.gov district mapping.
- Earmarks Tracker — Search congressionally directed spending from USASpending.gov by state, keyword, or member name
- Weekly Digest — Subscribe by ZIP code. Get a preview of your representatives' trades, votes, and flagged anomalies.
- Twitter Bot — @WTPForUs posts 4x/day with data-driven story excerpts, linking to full journal investigations. Auto-quote-tweets political news from monitored accounts with relevant WTP data.
- CSV Export — Export any data table (lobbying, contracts, enforcement, trades) for your own analysis
- AI Summaries — Claude-powered plain-English summaries of votes, enforcement actions, and politician profiles
Backend: FastAPI + SQLite (WAL mode, 4.1 GB)
25 routers, 39 connectors, 45+ jobs
Versioned API (/v1/), rate limiting, structured logging
JWT auth, RBAC, request tracing, security headers
Frontend: React 19 + Vite + TypeScript + Tailwind CSS 4
80+ pages (all code-split via React.lazy)
3 sites: main, research, journal
Mobile: Expo SDK 54 + React Native
40+ screens, all 9 sectors + tools
Infra: Hetzner Cloud (ARM, $3.99/mo) + Vercel
Let's Encrypt TLS, GitHub Actions CI
Prometheus metrics endpoint
WeThePeople/
├── main.py # FastAPI app + middleware + router mounting
├── routers/ # 25 API routers (one per sector + cross-cutting)
├── connectors/ # 39 API wrappers (Congress.gov, SEC, FDA, EPA, FARA, Finnhub, ...)
├── jobs/ # 45+ sync scripts, migrations, scheduler, Twitter bot
├── models/ # 16 model files (per-sector pattern + auth, FARA, stories)
├── services/ # Business logic (claims pipeline, influence graph, auth)
├── middleware/ # Request tracing, security headers
├── frontend/ # React 19 + Vite web app
│ └── src/
│ ├── pages/ # 80+ page components
│ ├── components/ # Shared UI (InfluenceGraph, ChoroplethMap, ChatAgent, ...)
│ ├── api/ # TypeScript API clients per sector
│ └── layouts/ # Per-sector layout wrappers
├── sites/
│ ├── research/ # WTP Research site (15 tools)
│ ├── journal/ # The Influence Journal (data stories)
│ └── shared/ # Shared components across sites
├── mobile/ # React Native / Expo (40+ screens, all 9 sectors)
├── deploy/ # Docker, deploy scripts, TLS docs
└── tests/ # Backend test suite
All data is sourced from official government APIs and open-source datasets. No scraped or paywalled data.
| Source | Data | Link |
|---|---|---|
| Congress.gov API | Bills, votes, sponsors, legislative actions | api.congress.gov |
| Senate LDA | Lobbying disclosures (2020-present) | lda.senate.gov |
| USASpending.gov | Federal government contracts | usaspending.gov |
| Federal Register | Enforcement actions, rules, presidential documents | federalregister.gov |
| FEC | Campaign donations, PAC disbursements | fec.gov |
| SEC EDGAR | Corporate filings (10-K, 10-Q, 8-K, Form 4) | sec.gov/edgar |
| House Clerk Disclosures | Congressional financial disclosure PDFs (primary trade source) | disclosures-clerk.house.gov |
| Finnhub | Congressional trades (backup source) | finnhub.io |
| OpenFDA | Product recalls, drug data | open.fda.gov |
| ClinicalTrials.gov | Clinical trial pipelines | clinicaltrials.gov |
| CMS Open Payments | Industry payments to physicians | openpaymentsdata.cms.gov |
| USPTO PatentsView | Patent filings and claims | patentsview.org |
| EPA GHGRP | Greenhouse gas emissions by facility | epa.gov/ghgreporting |
| NHTSA | Vehicle recalls, complaints, safety ratings | nhtsa.gov |
| FuelEconomy.gov | MPG and emissions data | fueleconomy.gov |
| FDIC BankFind | Bank quarterly financials | banks.data.fdic.gov |
| FRED | Federal Reserve economic indicators | fred.stlouisfed.org |
| Alpha Vantage | Stock fundamentals and quotes | alphavantage.co |
| OpenStates | State legislators and bills | openstates.org |
| OpenSanctions | Sanctions, PEP, watchlist checks (OFAC/EU/UN) | opensanctions.org |
| SAM.gov | Federal contract registrations, exclusions | sam.gov |
| Regulations.gov | Public comments on federal rules | regulations.gov |
| IT Dashboard | Federal IT spending | itdashboard.gov |
| GSA Site Scanning | Government website analytics | digital.gov |
| Google Civic | Representative lookup by address | developers.google.com |
| Senate.gov XML | Senate roll call votes | senate.gov |
| AInvest | Congressional trade enrichment (filing delays) | openapi.ainvest.com |
| FTC | Enforcement case data | ftc.gov |
| DOJ FARA | Foreign Agents Registration Act (foreign lobbying) | fara.gov |
| EPA EnviroFacts | Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) data | epa.gov/enviro |
| USAJobs | Federal job listings with salary data | usajobs.gov |
| Google News RSS | News search by topic | news.google.com |
| OpenCorporates | Corporate registration and officer data | opencorporates.com |
| FollowTheMoney | State-level campaign finance | followthemoney.org |
| EveryPolitician | Legislators from 233 countries | everypolitician.org |
| WhoIsMyRepresentative | ZIP-to-district representative lookup | whoismyrepresentative.com |
| Data.gov | Government open data | data.gov |
| GovInfo | Government publications | govinfo.gov |
Open-source datasets (CC0):
- unitedstates/congress-legislators — Committee and membership data
- unitedstates/congress — Senate vote scraping approach
- openstates/people — State legislator data for all 50 states
python -m venv .venv && source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt
cp .env.example .env # Add your API keys
uvicorn main:app --port 8006 # API at http://localhost:8006/docscd frontend
npm install
npm run dev # http://localhost:5173python jobs/seed_tracked_companies.py # 1,000+ entities across all sectors
python jobs/sync_votes.py # House roll call votes
python jobs/sync_senate_votes.py # Senate roll call votes
python jobs/sync_congressional_trades.py # Congressional stock tradescd mobile && npm install && npx expo startInteractive docs at /docs (Swagger) and /redoc (ReDoc).
The API is versioned under /v1/ with backward-compatible unprefixed routes. Rate limited at 60 req/min per IP.
Selected endpoints:
| Endpoint | Description |
|---|---|
GET /people |
Congress members with search, filter by state/party/chamber |
GET /people/{id} |
Full member profile with votes, trades, donors |
GET /influence/network |
Relationship graph for any entity |
GET /influence/spending-by-state |
Lobbying and donations aggregated by state |
GET /influence/money-flow |
Sankey diagram data: company to politician flows |
GET /influence/closed-loops |
Detected influence cycles |
GET /congressional-trades |
All 4,600+ congressional stock trades |
GET /{sector}/companies |
Tracked companies for any sector |
GET /{sector}/companies/{id} |
Company detail with lobbying, contracts, enforcement |
GET /search?q= |
Global search across all entities |
GET /claims/submit |
Submit text for claim verification |
GET /representatives?zip= |
Find your reps by ZIP code |
GET /people/{id}/full |
Combined profile: votes, trades, donors, committees, finance in one call |
GET /lookup/{zip} |
District-specific representative lookup |
GET /fara/search?q= |
Search FARA foreign lobbying registrations |
GET /research/earmarks |
Search congressionally directed spending |
GET /research/world-politicians |
Legislators from 233 countries |
GET /stories/latest |
AI-generated data investigations |
GET /anomalies |
Detected suspicious patterns |
Contributions are welcome. Here are some areas where help would be especially valuable:
- New data source integrations — More government APIs, FOIA databases, state-level data
- State legislative data enrichment — Bill tracking, committee votes, campaign finance at the state level
- District-level data — Census overlays, district-specific lobbying and spending analysis
- Visualization improvements — New ways to surface patterns in influence data
- Testing — Backend and frontend test coverage
Check the issues page for open tasks, or open a new issue to discuss your idea.
WeThePeople is free and open source. If you find it useful:
- Sponsor on GitHub
- Star this repo
- Share it with someone who cares about government accountability
| Project | License | What We Use |
|---|---|---|
| unitedstates/congress-legislators | CC0 (public domain) | Congressional committee and membership data |
| unitedstates/congress | CC0 (public domain) | Senate roll call vote scraping approach |
| openstates/people | CC0 (public domain) | State legislator data for all 50 states |
| FastScheduler | MIT | Automated sync job scheduling |
All integration code is original.
This project is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 (AGPL-3.0).
You are free to use, modify, and distribute this software. If you run a modified version as a network service, you must make your source code available under the same license. This ensures that improvements to the platform benefit everyone.
Some proprietary components (detection engine, verification pipeline) are maintained in a separate private repository and are not covered by this license. See the enterprise tier for access.
wethepeopleforus.com | Twitter | GitHub Sponsors
The public record belongs to the public. This platform just makes it easier to read.
If this project helped you understand money in politics, consider giving it a star — it helps others find it.